From Castanet
The Okanagan fruit industry appears to be in turmoil.
After a dispute broke out between Kirpal Boparai, President of the BC Fruit Growers Association (BCFGA) and the Okanagan Tree Fruit Cooperative (OTFC), membership from both sides appear to be split, along with the many growers they represent.
Yesterday the Okanagan Tree Fruit Cooperative’s new board of directors named Alan Tyabji as its new Chief Executive Officer.
Tyabji replaces Gary Schieck, who was abruptly removed from the post, along with Operations Manager Rod Vint prior to the announcement.
“It’s a board decision,” says Tyabji. “I was asked whether or not I would step in because Gary was leaving the organization.”
Tyabji held various positions within the cooperative including General Manager from January 1995 until 2008, when the two existing cooperatives in the Okanagan amalgamated and Tyabji was appointed joint Chief Executive Officer of the OTFC.
The change at the top was preceded by the OTFC AGM on October 23, which saw Vice President Jack Machial, Oliver and board member Sam Di Maria fail in their re-election bid.
Instead, Gordon Hahn, a Grower from Oliver and Kamlesh Parmar, a Grower in Kelowna, were elected to the board.
Rob Dawson was re-elected as President, a position he has held since 2011. Colin Pritchard, who has served as a board director since 2011 was elected as Vice President for the North Region. Nirmal Dhaliwal, a board member since 2010 is now the Vice President of the South Region.
On Thursday October 4, the OTFC announced that Kirpal Boparai no longer has a contract or membership with the cooperative and that they will not accept any of his fruit.
The job of mending this rift now falls to Tyabji, who started with the Okanagan Similkameen Cooperative in December 1985.
He aims to do that by taking a grass roots approach through regionalization.
“The benefit of going to regionalization is you get more of a grass roots connection. One of my key priorities is grower relationships. (They) are best achieved when you have a senior person closer to the grower bodies, as opposed to centralized.”
Tyabji says he will seek the input of his membership to discover the best way to solve the problems they face.